Menagerie
by Moriwen1
Summary: A collection of D/G oneshot challenge responses. All consistent and sequential.    This is my menagerie. This is my scarlet weasel, and my silver dragon. And these are a thousand glass dreams that might have been...
1. Deadly

It was the summer of 1998. The war was over, and we had won; winning, we had lost. My family had lost more than many. My older brother had died a hero's death, but that didn't make the pain of losing him any less bitter. My father was back in the Ministry now, but that didn't change the fact that he had lost nearly a year's salary, and we had never been rich at the best of times.

I had been doing some shopping in Diagon Alley, and in the interests of taking my mind off things, I stopped by the Magical Menagerie to take a look around. They had just gotten in a new litter of adorable black kittens, and I wanted to take a closer look.

It was several minutes before I realized I was not alone.

His pale hair halfway down his back, his cold eyes staring at me, Draco Malfoy was staring at me. His face was unreadable, but I didn't have to guess at his emotions. He had spelled out his feelings for me and my family clearly enough before. Hatred. Scorn.

I refused to allow myself to be intimidated. I knew Malfoy to be a coward in all things; even his one act of semi-heroism, switching sides along with his family at the end of the war, had clearly been inspired by cowardice. He was nothing to fear. And to maintain my dignity with him glaring at me, I had to talk to him.

"Malfoy." I meant it to sound cold and level, like his own voice, but it came out hoarse and nervous. "I didn't know you had a pet."

Malfoy didn't break eye contact with me as he replied. "Not the kind you like, I imagine. No kittens. I happen to have an excellent snake. He is black, and very venomous."

"I like snakes," I replied stoutly. "Coral snakes especially are very pretty. What sort is yours?"

"Despite your evident impression otherwise, I am not interested in holding a conversation with you, Weasley. Do me a favor and go back to crossing the street and looking sidelong at me. I liked it better. Oh, and staring at my arm. For people who are horrified with my former allegiances, you are certainly fascinated with the mark of it."

Despite my resolutions not to let him manipulate me, I couldn't help staring as he slowly pulled up the sleeve of his robe, revealing a broad red scar where the Mark had been on his arm.

"Didn't you hear me, Weasley? Stop staring at me." Before I could react, his wand was in his hand. I recoiled in terror, assuming I was going to be at the receiving end of one of his infamous jinxes. The quick spark didn't hit me at all, though; it took me a moment to figure out what it had hit.

Just behind me, the latch of a cage of toads had snapped up. The toads, being rather stupid creatures, took a few moments to notice it; then, all at once, they started croaking and leaping against the door. The fourth toad managed to swing it open, and hopped from the low shelf to the floor. Several others followed suit.

"What are you thinking?" I demanded, wheeling from the toads to face Malfoy again. "Go close it!"

"I, dear girl," he drawled, not moving from his slouch, "have done nothing. Anybody can plainly see that I have not moved from this spot. You, on the other hand-"

He didn't need to finish the sentence. Infuriated, I slammed the cage door close and latched it.

"If you haven't noticed, there are still several toads loose. You might want to replace them before the shopkeeper finishes his paper. Arthur's paychecks don't have wiggle room in them even for toads, or so I hear."

The twit. Could he be more infuriating? First he mocked my family, now he was forcing me to get down on my hands and knees and crawl all over the floor to find a lot of toads. Because he was perfectly right; I had been opening cages and handling the animals, anyone who saw the situation would immediately assume that I was at fault.

I have my pride, but I like to imagine I am rather practical, too. Muttering to myself, I knelt down and fished behind a display shelf of rat feed for a wayward toad. Draco just watched me, smirking.

It didn't help with the humiliation factor that Malfoy had an ungodly sort of beauty. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't fall for prats, no matter how attractive the prat in question might be. It was just bloody unfair, that's all. Why couldn't a decent Gryffindor boy, or even a Ravenclaw, have that hair. Those eyes...

I shuddered a little as I retrieved another toad, remembering that _those eyes _were still trained on me, with Malfoy's haughty gaze. Maybe I could do without them, after all.

As I slammed the door on the last toad, I snapped at Malfoy, "That was completely unnecessary. Do that again and I will report you-and with your reputation, any sane person would believe me."

Malfoy stifled a yawn. "Your threats bore me, Weasley. I've had my fun-and believe me, I've seen more than you think I have."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He almost smiled as he passed me, striding out of the store. His blond hair flew out behind him, brushing against my cheek. "You think I'm beautiful, Ginevra. Like a coral snake. Beautiful and deadly."

Then he was gone, leaving me standing in the pet store with slimy hands, scarcely able to breathe.


	2. Never

A dance, her mother said, was just the thing to cheer the young folks up a bit, and it wasn't right for a girl to be forever mourning. So she was going to the dance at the school reunion; she had no right to attend, being a year below the class it was held for, but then Harry, who had asked her as his date, had no right to be there either, being a dropout, and no one objected to _him._ She wore her mother's pearl drop earrings and a diamond comb all her own in her hair, and if her robes were old school ones lengthened and ironed for the occasion, they were clean at least and had no holes in them, so she was respectable.

Harry and Hermione Floo'd in at six to pick up her and Ron, respectively. Both of them had visibly new robes for the occasion, and the necklace Hermione wore would have paid for the new broom she had gone into debt for twice over. Ron told Hermione how lovely she was. Harry gave her an empty smile and asked if she was ready to go. But he offered her his arm as they stepped into the fireplace, and she forgot everything in a whirl of excitement.

She had no idea where the place was in which they arrived, but it was painfully gaudy, an old gym hung with diplomatic pink and purple streamers (she could imagine the debates which would have sprung up had house colors been used) and a big banner saying _Congratulations Class of __'98__! _Young men and women turned in a slow waltz or clustered around tables covered with plastic sheets in bright colors eating hors d'hoeuvres**. **A number of people who wished to avoid public attention wore Mardi Gras masks of the dollar store sort, plain and black or flaunting extravagant peacock feathers and glitter. Just before they left, Harry, forever hiding from his celebrity status, had pulled on one which covered his scar.

The decorations were tacky, no doubt about it, but the music was angelic. Soft symphonies which she could not identify floated from all about, a thousand soft musics humming in her ears. She stopped still and took deep breaths as if she could inhale the sonata, scent the chord; then, clasping Harry, she began to move in rhythm to it, joining the circles of twirling dancers.

When the tune finished, a quicker one started; she and Hermione swapped partners, and she waltzed with her brother. The movements were mechanical, her body's instinctive response to the music that filled her ears, her mind, her heart. Halfway through, she left her brother to stand by the wall, and, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths, listen to the music.

As the night wore on, she wondered from time to time if Harry would come looking for her, ask where she'd been, if she was all right. Apparently, however, he considered his obligations to have been satisfied by the one dance, and had moved into another corner of the room to talk with a group of old school friends. She didn't mind; she was satisfied just to listen to the music. Long robes brushed her from time to time as the dancers moved in and out; from time to time, a draught sent her a whiff of perfume. Every so often Hermione and Ron passed her, always together, content in each other, dancing the night away.

It was deep into the night when a man approached her. He wore long robes and a black silk mask, and seemed to bring the music with him on a breeze, wafting about her as if it sprung from him and was meant for her and her alone. Masked, she could not know his identity, but half from the quickened throbbing of her heart, half from the pale hair swept down his back, she guessed it.

"You should not be here!" she told him, in a quavering voice. Should he? It was his class, but...did known Death Eaters really come to high-school re-unions?

"I might say the same of you, Ginevra Weasley." He reached out; she thought he would touch her lips or her cheek, but instead he plucked a single bronze hair from where it lay on the shoulder of her robes. "The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. I have been watching you; you have not been dancing."

"Harry just isn't much of a dancer, that's all," she replied defensively. "Besides, I like listening to the music."

"It is beautiful," he agreed gravely. "But if he does not dance, he can hardly object to this."

And, without further ado, she was clasped against him, dancing.

They danced to that tune, and the next, and the next; each seemed designed for him, written for him, played for him, uniquely suited to him. All were beautiful to her ears. Once or twice, she tried to speak, to ask him if he was who she thought he was, what he thought he was doing; but he only placed his finger on her lips and said simply, "I will listen to the music." And his _I will_ suffered no contradiction.

At last, towards morning, as the tender interwoven melody of the flute died out and the strings rose in a final clarion chord, he raised his arm to twirl her in a pirouette, and the words _one last time _sprung to her mind for no reason at all.

And then his sleeve fell back.

One dissonant note, and then silence.

Somehow, in that moment, every person in the room were staring at them, alone in the middle of the dance floor. Not at Ginevra Weasley, the fianceé of the Boy Who Lived; not at the masked man pale as death in his black robes; but at the hideous, disfiguring scar, the remnant of a tattoo, sprawled across his exposed forearm.

He fled like the last shadows of a long winter's night dispelled and shattered by the rising sun; but, watching him, she could not help but wish that the dark and the cold might have lingered a little longer.

The chatter resumed, but the music did not. She was glad when Harry and the others came to take her home. Her mother was waiting in the warm comfort of the living room, wanting to hear a joyful tale of the fun she had had.

"How was your night, dear?"

"Lovely."

She was a bit tired from being up all night, she said, and that was certainly why she cast herself down on her bed the moment she was alone. Not to weep. Never to weep. Because she was happy.

...

Outside a respectable old house, in the gray morning, a man in black stopped to unfasten the length of silk bound about his eyes. He turned to look off into the red-gold of the rising sun, and a thin hand slipped into the pocket where he had tucked a single hair of the same hue.

"Ginevra," he whispered. "Ginevra, I lose myself in you and never want to come back out."

And he never did.


End file.
